Electronic systems and circuits have made a significant contribution towards the advancement of modern society and are utilized in a number of applications to achieve advantageous results. Numerous electronic technologies such as digital computers, calculators, audio devices, video equipment, and telephone systems have facilitated increased productivity and reduced costs in analyzing and communicating data in most areas of business, science, education and entertainment. Electronic systems providing these advantageous results often include attempts at restricted or controlled presentation of proprietary information. However, controlling information presentation and effectively enforcing designated distribution conditions are often difficult and problematic.
One area of concern is proprietary information in the entertainment industry. Unprotected digital content can often be copied relatively easily without loss of quality. Traditional digital rights management attempt to enable authorized distribution of propriety content while preventing unauthorized utilization or copying. High bandwidth digital content protection (HDCP) is one exemplary digital rights management approach that has been developed to control access to content when it is distributed. HDCP is primarily directed at protecting content as it is communicated between devices, for example, communicated over a digital visual interface (DVI) or high definition multimedia interface (HDMI) connection (e.g., from a computer to a display monitor).
Conventionally, attempts at restricting distribution and/or presentation of information are often a relatively expensive, resource intensive activity that usually involves specialized components. Traditional HDCP protection approaches typically involve an encryption that utilizes a HDCP key. The HDCP standards dictate that the HDCP key be unique to each graphics processor and the key is not exposed to an end user of content protected by the key. One traditional approach for utilizing HDCP includes a dedicated secure read only memory (ROM) for storing the HDCP key. Dedicated secure ROMs consume precious board space and usually add more complexity and expense than other types of general unsecured memory types. However, information stored in unsecured memories is often subject to unauthorized interception.